Okay. Dev goes into negative shoveling even more money and retaining the original development team into a product they already released to apologize. New expansion completely revamps the game and ignites hundreds of positive reviews and complete public opinion turnaround.
Now remind me when modern EA ever gave a game post release care. Most of their catalogue is just games they already released but with less features now so they can add it back in 4 years as a marketing ploy to be new. They aren’t even in the same league.
I’m talking about endogenous and exogenous hormones. Peptides, steroids, the like. But with training, recovery is always the most important factor for muscle growth with synthesis, so unless you have perfect conditions all the time (impossible for a natural) it’s better to optimize around recovery than being in the gym. Starting Strength is great for beginners like OP.
I’ve been doing a volume Bench Squat 5x5 Dead 1x5/intensity (start by doing heavy weight for sets of 5, when that’s too heavy do sets of 3, then down to 5 sets of 1, 3 sets of 1, a single max, then reset) 2 day split with one light day with band work to improve ligaments and neck work to avoid another herniated disc. I honestly consider this the best for naturals in both recovery and time, but with more exercises added in. I’m restricting to the main lifts for powerlifting competition, but adding accessories to focus more on triceps, or rack pulls, etc would be good. Since starting this a few months ago my squat has gone from a 1x5 315 squat to a 415 max and 325 5x5 as a 6’2 natural powerlifter.
5x5s are great, Practical Programming is a good book to follow Starting Strength, I recommend reading Alex Leonidas’ Naturally Enhanced for a more hypertrophy approach. The Texas Program is good. Most of these are designed around the same concept of a 2 day full body one volume heavy the other intensity.
That and fighting millions of years of evolutionary instinct screaming at you to eat everything you can when you start reducing calories in case you won’t eat again for a few days.
It’s only been MAYBE ~150 years that all classes of society had ready access to food.
Unless you take drugs, doing two or three full body workouts a week separated by 72 (for 2) or 48 (for 3) hours is far more optimal for protein synthesis operation. PPL and upper lower bro splits only work when you literally don’t have to worry about recovery (perfect T and other hormones).
But the rest of this is great advice and would recommend Starting Strength before 5x5.
Family having like 13 kids, only 5 maybe making it to teen age, daughter dies in childbirth, 4 kids to 50 type beat.
Population graph after penicillin is very telling